Collection

News, Trends, and Challenges in Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes

Submission status
Closed
The research area of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) represents an enormously developing field attracting and also deserving overlasting attention from the scientific community throughout the world. This field has been covered by the CAZy database (http://www.cazy.org/) - the sequence-based classification of CAZymes, i.e. the enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis and formation of glycoside linkages as well as modification of a variety of carbohydrates. The carbohydrate-active enzymes are currently classified to families of glycoside hydrolases (GHs), glycosyltransferases (GTs), polysaccharide lyases (PLs), carbohydrate esterases (CEs), and auxiliary activities (AAs). There is also an indispensable segment of the CAZy database devoted to non-catalytic domains of CAZymes - i.e. their carbohydrate-binding modules - delivering their classification into CBM families. The general importance of this topic has been reflected also by creating the CAZypedia (http://www.cazypedia.org/) - which is the wikipedia-like project complementary to CAZy database. CAZymes thus form the bridge from basic research to various practical applications, including but not limited to modern biotechnologies and top approaches in medicine. For this special issue of the journal Biologia ("Cellular and Molecular Biology" section), three types of papers - (i) Original Articles; (ii) Reviews; and (iii) Opinions - are equally welcome and considered.

Editors

  • Stefan Janecek Stefan Janecek , 

    Stefan Janecek

    Dr. Stefan Janecek is a Professor at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, both in Slovakia. He works as a protein bioinfomatician, most interested in amylolytic enzymes from CAZy database families GH13, GH57, GH70, GH77, GH119 and GH126, as well as starch-binding domains classified as CBM families. He is the founder of the symposia on the alpha-amylase enzyme family - ALAMYs. He also serves as Managing Editor of Biologia, Cellular and Molecular Biology section.

  • Bernard Henrissat Bernard Henrissat  &

    Bernard Henrissat

    Bernard Henrissat is a Professor at the Technical University of Denmark since 2021 and an Emeritus CNRS Director of Research at the Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques Laboratory in Marseille, France. He developed the family classification of CAZymes, made this classification widely available via the continuously updated CAZy database (www.cazy.org) and applied it to the analysis of hundreds of genomes and metagenomes.

  • Harry Brumer Harry Brumer

    Harry Brumer

    Dr. Harry Brumer is Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories and Department of Chemistry at University of British Columbia. His research group works to understand the functional diversity of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) and carbohydrate-binding proteins, including glycoside hydrolases, transglycosylases, and auxiliary redox enzymes, and to harness these biocatalysts for applications. Prof. Brumer is also the Primary Curator of CAZypedia (https://www.cazypedia.org/), an encyclopedic resource on the Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes, which has been built by a global community of expert contributors.

Articles (17 in this collection)

  11. The dual role of fucosidases: tool or target

    Authors (first, second and last of 4)

    • Carlos Jiménez-Pérez
    • Francisco Guzmán-Rodríguez
    • Sergio Alatorre-Santamaría
    • Content type: Review
    • Published: 28 February 2023
    • Pages: 1773 - 1788